Thurs 2nd March
On March 2nd. five of us: Helen, Diana, Marie, Sue and myself, went to the Williamson Art Gallery in Birkenhead to hear Jackie Kay read her poetry. The event was sponsored and arranged by the ‘First Thursday’ a group of Wirral people who share an interest in literature and the arts. Jackie Kay came over to us as a very warm and caring woman with a wicked sense of humour and a genuine love of humanity. There was both realism and optimism in her poetry which she delivered with great good humour and, at times, poignancy.
She was born in Edinburgh in 1961 and was adopted in the same year by a couple, Helen and John Kay, who had already adopted her brother Maxwell two years earlier. Her father worked full-time for the Communist Party of Great Britain and her mother was the Scottish secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Her birth-father was a Nigerian student and her Scottish birth-mother a nurse. Both her birth parents were a disappointment to her but she adored her adoptive parents and therefore had no regrets about her upbringing whatsoever.
The large room at the ‘Williamson’ was packed out with Wirral’s, (and North Wales’s!), cogniscenti who, judging from the applause, thoroughly enjoyed the performance of the poet and that of Nick Byrne, a superb cellist, who transported us with his interpretations of Bach concertos and ‘The Swan’ by Saint-Saëns.
I was personally keen to hear Jackie Kay as my Daughter and she had been devising a creative writing course together. I know that Francesca thought highly of the writer and was greatly looking forward to working with her. At the end of the show I stood in line to get her to sign my copy of ‘The Red Dust Road’ and wondered if she remembered her. “Of course I do” she replied and reached for my hand. She kindly signed the book, added a comment about Francesca and then asked “May I give you a hug?” I was so moved and felt very privileged.
Please excuse my self-indulgence. Tomorrow is our daughter’s birthday; she would have been sixty-three years old.
I must also express our huge thanks to Sue Mortimer for arranging the visit for us, buying the tickets and holding them until we could collect them in Birkenhead. We are in your debt Sue.
Thank you so much on behalf of our little group.
g.